Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Wildflowers in winter.....



In keeping with the theme of week 6 in Wildflowers in Winter, Elizabeth Joy asked us to include "art" from our nature journals. So today, I'm including a few pictures from my own nature journals. I don't always consider them as "art," but rather, sketches or rough interpretations of what I see. They represent the passing of days and seasons of my life and how I reflected upon them. May these pages encourage you to go forward and keep your own nature journals, no matter how rough around the edges they may be. In the coming years, they will turn into priceless treasures.



If you would like more information on how to keep a nature journal for yourself or with your children, I have some webpages up that explain how we observed and recorded nature in our own home school. Examples of nature journal pages can be found here. One of my favorite books on the subject is: Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth.

Picture by Richard Earl Thompson

Nature study cultivates in the child a love of the beautiful; it brings to him early a perception of color, form, and music. He sees whatever there is in his environment, whether it be the thunder-head piled up in the western sky, or the golden flash of the oriole in the elm; whether it be the purple of the shadows on the snow, or the azure glint on the wing of the little butterfly. Also, what there is of sound, he hears; he reads the music score of the bird orchestra, separating each part and knowing which bird sings it. And the patter of the rain, the gurgle of the brook, the sighing of the wind in the pine, he notes and loves and becomes enriched thereby. But more than all, nature study gives the child a sense of companionship with life out-of-doors and an abiding love of nature.

~Anna Botsford Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study

6 comments:

  1. I keep a nature journal too. But I need to spend a little more time with it - it gives me so much pleasure.

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  2. We have yet to start nature journals with our children. It's something I really want to try this year. I'm thinking this would be a fun way to fill up Easter baskets with journals, colored pencils, etc.

    The prairie coneflower is just lovely!

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  3. I love nature journals, and the simple art that is found there. I enjoy taking my journal out on a spring day and having time to sit down and see and draw.

    Thank you for sharing.

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  4. I enjoyed reading your pages about keeping a nature journal. Your drawings, notes and painting were a treat to see and to read.

    The quotation from Anna Botsford Comstock was something every parent should read.

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  5. I love nature journals and try to keep one, too. It's been awhile but my friend Natalie emailed me recently to remind me that we need to go out and do some plein air painting again. Thank you also for this lovely reminder of celebrating nature. Your pictures are very lovely.

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  6. ThanX for sharing this peek into your beautiful nature journal. Very inspirational! I wonder what boX mine is packed in...

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